‘They may have need of you and your ship. It’s complicated.’
‘No doubt.’
Janath waved a handmaiden over and muttered some instructions. The short, overweight woman with the pimply face waddled off.
‘You really don’t trust Tehol, do you?’ Shurq asked, watching the handmaiden depart.
‘It’s not a matter of trust. More a question of eliminating temptation.’
She snorted. ‘Never works. You know that, don’t you? Besides, he’s a king. He has royal leave to exercise kingly excesses. It’s a well-established rule. Your only reasonable response is to exercise in kind.’
‘Shurq, I’m a scholar and not much else. It’s not my way-’
‘Make it your way, Highness. And then the pressure’s off both of you. No suspicions, no jealousies, no unreasonable expectations. No unworkable prohibitions.’
‘Such liberating philosophy you have, Captain.’
‘So it is.’
‘And doomed to sink into a most grisly mire of spite, betrayal and loneliness.’
‘That’s the problem with you living. You’re all stuck on seeing only the bad things. If you were dead like me you’d see how pointless all that is. A waste of precious energy. I recommend your very own ootooloo-that’ll put your thoughts in the right place.’
‘Between my legs, you mean.’
‘Exactly. Our very own treasure chest, our pleasure box, the gift most women lock up and swallow the key to, and then call themselves virtuous. What value in denying the gift and all it offers? Madness! What’s the value of a virtue that makes you miserable and wretched?’
‘There are other kinds of pleasure, Shurq-’
‘But none so readily at hand for each and every one of us. You don’t need coin. Errant fend, you don’t even need a partner! I tell you, excess is the path to contentment.’
‘And have you found it? Contentment, I mean, since your excesses are not in question.’
‘I have indeed.’
‘What if you could live again?’
‘I’ve thought about it. A lot, lately, in fact, since there’s a necromancer among the Malazans who says he can attempt a ritual that might return me to life.’
‘And?’
‘I’m undecided. Vanity.’
‘Your ageless countenance.’
‘The prospect of unending pleasure, actually.’
‘Don’t you think you might tire of it someday?’
‘I doubt it.’
Queen Janath pursed her lips. ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.
Tehol plucked a globe of pinkfruit from the tree beside the fountain. He studied it. ‘That was harsh,’ he said.
‘They wanted to make it convincing,’ said Bugg. ‘Are you going to eat that?’
‘What? Well, I thought it made a nice gesture, holding it just so, peering at it so thoughtfully.’
‘I figured as much.’
Tehol handed him the fruit. ‘Go ahead, ruin the prosaic beauty of the scene.’
Squishy, wet sounds competed with the fountain’s modest trickle.
‘Spies and secret handshakes,’ said Tehol. ‘They’re worse than the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
Bugg swallowed, licked his lips. ‘Who?’
‘Women? Lovers and ex-lovers? Old acquaintances, I don’t know. Them. They.’
‘This is a court, sire. The court plots and schemes with the same need that we-uh, you-breathe. A necessity. It’s healthy, in fact.’
‘Oh now, really.’
‘All right, not healthy, unless of course one can achieve a perfect equilibrium, each faction played off against the others. The true measure of success for a king’s Intelligence Wing.’
Tehol frowned. ‘Who’s flapping that, by the way?’
‘Your Intelligence Wing?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I am.’
‘Oh. How goes it?’
‘I fly in circles, sire.’
‘Lame, Bugg.’
‘As it must be.’
‘We need to invent another wing, I think.’
‘Do we now?’
Tehol nodded, plucking another fruit and studying it contemplatively. ‘To fly true, yes. A counter-balance. We could call it the King’s Stupidity Wing.’
Bugg took the fruit and regarded it. ‘No need, we already have it.’
‘We do?’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Hah hah.’